The discussion of any work, publications, sales, or activity anywhere in this submission, including in any documents submitted with this application, shall not be taken as an admission that any such work constitutes prior art. The discussion of any activity, work, or publication herein is not an admission that such activity, work, or publication existed or was known in any particular jurisdiction.
Schemes to fraudulently obtain money or credits from casinos or gaming houses by manipulating card play and/or credit devices, such as chips, are known. In one such scheme, a blackjack dealer may arrange with a co-conspirator to allow the co-conspirator to “win” large amounts from the house. Individual players have also devised unlawful schemes enabling them to “win” at various gaming tables including blackjack and craps. Still other schemes involve the theft or misuse or counterfeiting of gaming cards.
Manipulation and counterfeiting of gaming cards and/or gaming chips are one type of fraud that casinos must monitor. (The term “chip” as used herein shall be understood to encompass any type of gaming or casino-accepted currency, such as gaming chips, plaques, or jetons.) As a consequence of various schemes to manipulate playing cards and/or game results, casinos expend considerable time and effort in manually observing players, game operators, and other casino employees in an effort to make certain that all of the games are fairly played and that card holding, card passing or the use of unauthorized or counterfeit cards is kept to a minimum. Such matters as the amount of a player's buy-in, the time played, the average bet of the player, and a player's win-loss record are often tracked. Such techniques are labor intensive and only partially effective.
Radio Frequency Transponders in Gaming Chips
It is known to embed a radio frequency transponder in a gaming chip, and one such construction is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,166,502 to Rendleman et al. It is also known to track the flow and history of gaming chips through a casino. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,735,742 and 5,651,548 to John French describe aspects of a system to monitor and record all gaming chip transactions in a casino. This system is directed to reducing theft and fraud on the casino floor, while also reducing the need for large numbers of pit employees to manually monitor activities at the various gaming tables. In some implementations, a gaming chip, and/or jetons and or plaques have a body and a transponder carried within the body. The transponder is encoded with permanent read-only identification information and further includes a data bank for receiving and maintaining changeable information transmitted thereto from an RF antenna. The changeable information may include a voidable casino security code, so that a chip may easily be voided if fraud is suspected, as well as a transactional history of the chip within the casino.
Many different RFID technologies exist and continue to be developed. One or more of these technologies can be employed according to specific embodiments of the invention based on various design parameters. It would be understood to on of skill in the RFID art how to select and implement RFID components for use in a system according to specific embodiments of the invention. Some information regarding design and implementation of various RFID systems can be found at http(://)transpondernews(.)com and its linked web pages, as well as the references supplied below.
A number of methods are known for incorporating RF transponders in a flat object such as a product label. For example, the following United States Patent references discuss various RFID technologies, including, surface-printable RFID-transponders; flat-silicon RFID transponders; and RFID transponders that have read/write/erase capability. These references are provided as examples of technology that can be used to implement various aspects of the present invention and are intended not to be limiting.
RFID Background
DocumentDocument Title1U.S. Pat. No. 7,223,320Method and apparatus for expanding a semiconductor wafer2U.S. Pat. No. 7,224,280RFID device and method of forming3U.S. Pat. No. 7,212,127RFID tag and label4U.S. Pat. No. 7,199,456Injection molded product and a method for its manufacture5U.S. Pat. No. 7,187,293Singulation of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags for testing and/orprogramming6U.S. Pat. No. 7,172,130Electronic device, rubber product, and methods for manufacturing the same7U.S. Pat. No. 7,158,033RFID device with combined reactive coupler8U.S. Pat. No. 7,152,803Smart label web and a method for its manufacture9U.S. Pat. No. 7,154,283Method of determining performance of RFID devices10U.S. Pat. No. 7,151,979System and method for tracking inventory11U.S. Pat. No. 7,135,979In-mold radio frequency identification device label12U.S. Pat. No. 7,137,000Method and apparatus for article authentication13U.S. Pat. No. 7,117,581Method for high volume assembly of radio frequency identification tags14U.S. Pat. No. 7,109,867RFID tags with EAS deactivation ability15U.S. Pat. No. 7,102,520RFID device and method of forming16U.S. Pat. No. 7,071,826Method and devices with a circuit for carrying information on a host17U.S. Pat. No. 7,066,393Smart label and a smart label web18U.S. Pat. No. 7,069,110System and method for tracking inventory19U.S. Pat. No. 7,059,518RFID device detection system and method20U.S. Pat. No. 7,061,382Apparatus for electronically verifying the authenticity of contents within acontainer21U.S. Pat. No. 7,055,753RFID device tester and method22U.S. Pat. No. 7,055,756Deposition fabrication U.S. Pat. No. ing inkjet technology23U.S. Pat. No. 7,057,562RFID device with patterned antenna, and method of making24U.S. Pat. No. 7,023,347Method and system for forming a die frame and for transferring dies therewith25U.S. Pat. No. 7,017,799Spindle sleeve with transponder26U.S. Pat. No. 6,986,826Durable supports for labeling and relabeling objects27U.S. Pat. No. 6,957,777Label to be attached on a plastic product formed in a mold and identifiable by adetecting device28U.S. Pat. No. 6,951,596RFID label technique29U.S. Pat. No. 6,206,292Surface-printable RFID-transponders;Card Shoes or Card Holders
Various casino-type card games can utilize devices that hold playing cards. Such devices are commonly known as card shoes. Table mounted card shoes can generally be categorized as one of two types: one type holds playing cards, which cards are removed from the card shoe by the card dealer. Typically, such card shoes have only one function and that is to hold playing cards. Another type of card shoe not only holds the playing cards, but also electronically scans playing cards to determine the cards' value. Generally, this scanning is done as the card is leaving the card shoe.
Generally, when using a card shoe, a playing card leaves the shoe with exactly the same data on it, either in printed or electrically or magnetically stored forms, as the card had when it initially entered the shoe. In shoes with electronic scanning, playing cards generally are scanned for a card's suit and value, though generally the cards are not scanned to determine each card's individual uniqueness. Existing card shoes generally are limited in their data exchange ability with playing cards or other game table components.
In some prior systems, playing cards used in table games are scanned by optical devices that are placed within and/or attached to playing card holders. Such scanners scan patterns on or within the playing cards, but these playing cards generally have no capacity to retain or store data during dealing or game play. Playing cards have been developed that have radio frequency transponders therein, but such playing cards generally have no capacity allowing a two way interface with various card holding devices including devices that shuffle playing cards and/or table mounted card scanners.
Some casino table games utilize card holding devices that shuffle playing cards. In some cases, these devices can include scanners integrated within and/or attached thereto to scan the playing cards and to count and verify that no cards are missing and that there are no counterfeit cards within the decks of cards being shuffled. Existing card shuffling machines generally have no features that allow them to erase data, transmit data, record data, and/or write data to the playing cards. Such card shuffling machines generally are not able to individually identify the uniqueness (fingerprint) of each card.